


Anachronism and Inaccuracy: Resetting How To Train Your Dragon in the Post-Apocalypse

by afterandalasia



Series: OTW Chat Trope Bingo 2016 [1]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Jurassic Park - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Don't Take This Too Seriously, Dragons, Gen, Meta, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I (with my tongue firmly in my cheek) lay out evidence for why <i>How to Train Your Dragon</i> is a post-apocalyptic story - set in the far future of <i>Jurassic Park</i> and its genetic manipulation of dinosaurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to Train Your Dragon: A Post-Apocalypse Setting

**Author's Note:**

> Also humbly submitted for my OTW Chat Trope Bingo square "Crossover".

As historical fantasy goes, _How to Train Your Dragon_ falls down far more on the  _fantasy_ side than on the  _historical_. That may not be too surprising, seeing as the entire story started with Vikings riding dragons, but with the development of the movie and television franchise (and games set in the same continuity, _School of Dragons_ and  _Rise of Berk_ ) the colourfully anachronistic setting has perhaps become more noticeable. Somewhere around  _Defenders of Berk_ , I settled on the idea that How to Train Your Dragon was a post-apocalyptic future, and actually found that this idea supplied a number of explanations for the story being told. It is even more marked because Dreamworks puts such effort into the scientific side of their setting, truly grounding their dragons in reality.

Just to be clear, I do not seriously think that Dreamworks are writing a post-apocalyptic story! They are simply telling their (beautiful, incredible) story, and constructing the world as it needs to be for that - with a little rule of cool and/or rule of funny along the way. But I do hope to persuade at least a couple of people that  _How to Train Your Dragon_ makes sense as a story of what happens after the world has been markedly changed - a future, not a past.

 

 

 

The broad categories of anachronism are:

  1. Culture and religion;
  2. Technology;
  3. Crops and farming;
  4. Geography;
  5. Scientific knowledge;
  6. The Scourge of Odin



 

 

**1\. Culture and Religion**

 

The Berkians of  _How to Train Your Dragon_ (and, in  _DreamWorks Dragons_ , the Outcasts and Berserkers) ping us as "Vikings". The runes in which they write, their boats, the axes they carry and the gods by which they swear all make up a sort of vague "Vikingness" that we in popular culture identify without necessarily thinking too deeply about. But many people with some historical knowledge can see immediately that while Berkians may call themselves Vikings, and they fit the trappings of such, they do not fit into an archaeological framework.

My undergraduate degree is in archaeology, but my speciality was human osteoarchaeology (bones and skeletons), so I am neither a historian nor a specialist in the proto-historical period which I am about to discuss. For this, I can only apologise. It is also part of the reason that I will not be going too in-depth in this section. Evidence from this period comes from both archaeological sources and the Icelandic sagas, which were composed in the 9th to 11th centuries CE (i.e. 800-1099).

The Viking era is generally dated as starting in 793 CE (the first dated raid by Scandinavian sailors into England) and finishing in 1066 CE (the Battle of Hastings in English history). It is preceded in Scandinavian archaeology by the Germanic Iron Age, and followed by either the Medieval period or Christianisation depending on the scheme followed. Both of these dates are defined by the start and end of _raiding_ activity upon neighbouring countries, and culturally there was significant overlap at both ends. However, there is a broad cluster of behaviour and culture which we can point to, and which the Vikings of  _How to Train Your Dragon_ flatly do not portray.

 

**1.1 Trade and Travel**

Historically, one of the things which marks out Vikings was the [size of the world in which they moved](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Viking_Expansion.svg). Although most Vikings were involved in farming, the culture as a whole was very outward-facing, in both raiding and trading: Vikings settled in America, raided all across North-West Europe, traded with Russia, and worked in Constantinople. In contrast, the Berk that we see is very isolated, with only one outside trader who visits (Trader Johann) and one other island/tribe with whom they have contact in the first two TV seasons (the Berserkers). Out-of-universe, this is probably largely to do with animation costs, but in-universe it paints Berk as very isolated and insular. This would be exceptionally strange for the viking era.

 

**1.2 Religion**

I feel the need to make a brief note about religion. There is a background indication of Norse Religion & Lore being in effect within the movie/TV universe - we get references to Thor, Odin and Loki on a fairly regular basis. Historically, the Viking era overlapped with the Christianisation of Scandinavia, but it would not be impossible to not see Christianity within the story as it was introduced by contact with other cultures (and Berk is isolated, as noted in trade and travel).

However, the religious references that we see are actually pretty minimal. Only these three deities are mentioned regularly (apart from one reference to Frigga in _Snotlout Gets the Axe_ ,  and ones of Freyja in the same and back in  _Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man_ ), despite there being a pretty broad Norse pantheon; there's no nuance, no differentiation between Aesir and Vanir, no reference to the mythological races and creatures that make Norse lore so colourful. There is no reference to  _seiðr_ , a form of magic practised in pre-Christian Viking culture. Nobody wears Thor's hammers ( _torshammere_ ), a protective pendant commonly worn both before and during the Christian era (inverted, it looks a little like a cross!) such as [this example](http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/hammer.jpg) found in Købelev, Lolland, and currently in the Danish National Museum.

The overall effect is one that is vaguely reminiscent of pre-Christianised Viking religion, but somehow  _off_ , and unfortunately inaccurate.

 

**1.3 Clothing**

Clothing, wow, clothing. This is one of the big things that stands out about HTTYD, to me at least. Now, the characters go through various looks, but for the sake of simplicity here I'll use as an example the main cast as they appear in the second film.

And I'll compare it to [some archaeological finds and reconstructions thereof](https://sites.google.com/site/archoevidence/home/viking-clothing-guides).

                                             

From left to right: 1) Original: The Kostrup apron dress; it is generally thought to have been significantly more brightly coloured than this originally. 2) Reconstruction: clothing from the Mammen burial site. Embroidery is speculative. 3) Reconstruction: the Hedeby kaftan.

 

I'm honestly not sure which parts to call inaccuracies, and which parts to call anachronisms, at this point. In a situation where dragon attacks are regular feature, I'm quite willing to allow for increasingly gender-neutral clothing, as women would need to fight as well in the circumstances. So it isn't too much of a surprise that our female characters aren't wearing clothes like the Kostrup apron dress. And overall, the tunic-and-trousers look is a pretty good default. The biggest issues are helmets and boots, but some items such as Astrid's spiked skirts (which honestly are practically twentieth-century, never mind Viking) and the shoulder armour which various of them wear. Metal shoulder armour, whether called spaulders, pauldrons, munnions or otherwise, was considerably more common in the later Middle Ages, after the Viking Age was over.

We have pretty good evidence of Viking shoes, with many [examples from Hedeby](http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/pix/shoe_styles.jpg) in particular. They are all leather, lightweight and fairly fitted to the foot, with more or less pointed toes. This is nothing like what we see in How to Train Your Dragon, whose boots I cannot honestly compare to any historical period.

Secondly, Vikings did not wear horned helmets. This is something which an increasing number of people are aware of, but which popular culture still links with Vikings. In a more unusual example, this anachronism does not call forward in time - it points backwards. Horned helmets  _are_ found in Scandinavian - in the Bronze Age, 1500 to 2000 years earlier than the Viking period. The Denmark National Museum has some [great examples](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronze_Age_Helmets,_Nationalmuseet_Copenhagen.jpg), like these ones from Veksø.

 

 

 

** 2\. Technology **

This is the area of anachronism which really becomes marked in the TV series. In the first film, the technology at least reads as broadly being from the Viking era, although notable is the large anvil which [Gobber](http://caps.pictures/201/0-how-train-dragon/full/how-to-train-disneyscreencaps.com-220.jpg) and [Hiccup](http://caps.pictures/201/0-how-train-dragon/full/how-to-train-disneyscreencaps.com-4059.jpg) can be seen using at various points in the movie, which was not in use until the Medieval period. (I don't know so much about the sharpening stone which Hiccup uses - I have a niggling feeling that this should be checked, but I can't find any sources on the history of sharpening stones of this type.) For the most part, though, it passes a casual glance.

Getting into the series, however, the technology gets a lot more anachronistic. I won't count anything that we see Hiccup or another character inventing, just background technology that isn't touched on. Notable early examples include Hamish the Second's [complicated trap system](http://thetvshows.us/albums/Uploads/Dreamworks%20Dragons/Season%201%20Riders%20of%20Berk/Riders%20of%20Berk%20Episode%2008%20Portrait%20of%20Hiccup%20as%20a%20Buff%20Man/DD_S1_RoB_E8_0461.jpg) in  _Riders of Berk: Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man_. Moving into  _Race to the Edge_ , as the worldbuilding increases, so does the anachronism. Even without Hiccup's mad scientist side coming to the fore! Some examples include the massive complexity of the Dragon Eye, the [multi-hulled ships](http://thetvshows.us/albums/Uploads/Dreamworks%20Dragons/Season%203%20Race%20to%20the%20Edge/Dreamworks%20Dragons%20Episode%2015%20Night%20of%20the%20Hunters%20Part%201/DD_S3_RttE_E15_0083.jpg) of the Dragon Hunters (such ships are not documented outside Austronesia until the nineteenth century, apart from a couple of varieties of Greek ship from the third century BCE), and the complex chemical knowledge which must underpin the c[onversion of dragon root to an anaesthetic gas](http://thetvshows.us/albums/Uploads/Dreamworks%20Dragons/Season%204%20Race%20to%20the%20Edge/Dreamworks%20Dragons%20Episode%2008%20Stryke%20Out/DD_S4_RttE_E8_0074.jpg) as seen in  _Race to the Edge: Stryke Out_.

Obviously, this is only scratching the surface, but it's very clear: although the technological base at first glance appears largely consistent with the Viking Age, there are a lot of things in this world that should not exist even at latest part of the Viking Age. 

 

 

 

** 3\. Crops and Farming **

Generally speaking, if a plant or animal appears in the movie/TV universe, it's not supposed to be there archaeologically. Unless it's a sheep, or a chicken. Over two years ago, I [listed](http://ficofandalasia.livejournal.com/18558.html) the plants and (food) animals attested to in the How to Train Your Dragon universe at that time; since then, _Race to the Edge_ and  _How to Train Your Dragon 2_ have also been released and do add to the lists.

The pertinent ones are the plants and animals which were not known in North-Western Europe at this time. These are:

  * **Animals seen** : yak.
  * **Animals referenced:**  chipmunk ( _The Terrible Twos_ ), giant clam ( _Dragon Eye of the Beholder Part 1_ ), turkey ( _Dragon Eye of the Beholder Part 2_ ), fruit bats ( _Edge of Disaster Part 1_ ), ring tailed lemur ( _Last Auction Heroes_ ).
  * **Plants seen:**  potato, bitterweed.
  * **Plants referenced:**  tomato, coconut ( _The Zippleback Experience_ ), watermelon ( _Edge of Disaster Part 1_ ), pineapple ( _Buffalord Soldier_ ).
  * **Meals seen or referenced:**  parfait ( _The Fright Stuff_ ), figgy pudding ( _Crushing It_ ), ice cream ( _The Eel Effect, Crushing It_ ), marshmallows* ( _Bad Moon Rising_ ).



* Marshmallow-like sweets were made in Ancient Egypt, but were extremely rare until they took their modern form in the 1800s.

  * **Plants from School of Dragons:** squash, black bean, corn, sunflower, tomato, pumpkin, arctic gentian, white pumpkin.
  * **Animals from School of Dragons:**  yak, turkey, Ozark cavefish.



Most of these plants and animals are from the Americas, and therefore not known in Europe before 1492 by definition. Others are from Austronesia, and dates of their introduction to Europe vary.

This does not account for those creatures and plants which do not appear in the real world, which include plenty other than dragons! The following plants seem have been created for the universe:

  * **(Non-Dragon) Animals:**  bloodbane eel, giant eel, giant electric eel, grimora, giant spider ( _School of Dragons_ ).
  * **Plants:**  dragon nip, bio-luminescent algae, fire fern, blue oleander**, purple oleander, sagefruit, rock blossom, toothache plant ( _School of Dragons_ ).



** Oleander is a real plant, but its flowers are white-pink-red in colour.

 

 

 

** 4. Geography **

I don't really have so much to say on the geography of the setting, beyond a few observations. An [official map](http://www.dreamworkstv.com/race-to-the-edge/map/#/map) exists for the movies and TV series; Berk is generally said to be in the North Sea, somewhere between the British Isles and Scandinavia. However, it is very clear that this to does not map onto an set of islands which currently exists.

Most of the islands and areas are not given real-world names; some of them, we even see Hiccup naming as he goes along (although it is likely that some of them have names which Hiccup does not know!). However, we do get references to real-world places: Tuffnut has referenced Stockholm ( _Between a Rock and a Hard Place_ ) and Johann's stories have included mentions of Papua New Guinea and Palau. So what looks at first like a fantasy geography has references to real places.

Secondly, on the climatic side of geography, in  _Zippleback Down_ Hiccup comments that there is a "dry, hot wind from the north". Plenty of northern European viewers will probably have been confused by that! Generally, a northern wind in north-west Europe means  _cold_ dry air, as it is coming down off the Arctic. Most likely this is just a mistake, but for now I'll use it as evidence that the geography of the How to Train Your Dragon world is not quite as well know it!

 

 

 

** 5. Scientific Knowledge **

This is another area which really stands out as anachronistic for a story set anywhere in the Viking era. It's possible that some of the things said and known are a case of 'translation' - for example, the word "clavicle" (used by the twins in  _Dragon Flower_ ) was not coined until the late medieval/early modern period, but a word for collarbone will have existed before that. However, some of the concepts discussed simply were not known at the time.

**Allergies** are a plot point on more than one occasion ( _Dragon Flower_ ,  _Big Man on Berk_ ). As early as the 1st Century BCE, the Roman Lucretius said "what is food for some may be fierce poisons for others", but a real understanding of allergies did not develop until the nineteenth century. Certainly, specific concepts such as "allergens" would not have been known at this time.

In  _The Next Big Sting_ , the teens also discuss  **evolution** , also known as descent with modification. The history of thought on evolution  _is_ a lot older than Darwin - it was discussed in pre-Socratic Greece, in Warring States China, and by the Epicurean thought of Greek philosophy including by the same Lucretius mentioned above. It was also discussed within the philosophy of the Islamic Golden Age, which did overlap in time with the Viking Age to the north. However, such discussions were more sporadic, and we don't have evidence that such discussion was taking place in Viking communities. That is not to say that it was not - our texts from that time and area are very sparse - but so far we have no evidence, and it looks unlikely to say the least.

In  _The Terrible Twos_ , we also get the naming of the Typhoomerang by combining the words  **typhoon** and  **boomerang**. The word 'typhoon' is specific to the northern Pacific basin as a term for tropical storms, but it is possibly that Viking would know of tropical storms generally from contact with other seafaring cultures (and tropical storms can, very rarely, migrate so far north), making this a translation issue. However, the word 'boomerang' originates specifically from Aboriginal Australian languages; it refers to non-returning as well as returning throwing sticks, which are known in Europe including [the prehistoric Netherlands](http://www.rmo.nl/collectie/zoeken?object=U+1963%2f12.6a). The fact that they are made of wood makes them less inclined to preservation, which may indicate that they were more prevalent than we are currently aware, and there are (not widely accepted) claims that the game of  _kubb_ has Viking origins. However, the word boomerang is definitely an anachronism, and a pretty jarring one at that.

Most interesting, in some ways, is the way in which these specific advanced areas of knowledge contrast with incidents like the lack of understanding of lightning in  **When Lightning Strikes**. There honestly isn't a consistent level of scientific knowledge throughout the movies or TV series settings, and while this adds to the cheerfully fantastical anachronism it does leave questions unanswered.

 

 

 

** 5. The Scourge of Odin **

I'm giving the Scourge of Odin its own section because it is not quite an anachronism: it is something that does not exist in the real world at all. It appears in "Buffalord Soldier" as a disease which had caused plagues in the archipelago in the past but has been thought to have died out some centuries previously. It can be contracted through a scratch, but not through skin-to-skin contact or breathing. Symptoms include coughing, weakness, fainting and pallour, leading in the later stages to greenish skin and death. It takes hold very quickly; "three moons" seems to mean three nights in this setting, and apparently most deaths take place within this time frame. It is stated to have wiped out entire villages.

This is a seriously nasty disease. In terms of death rates, it sounds as if it is close to great dangers like respiratory anthrax or ebola (although note that "wiping out" villages may simply mean that it killed so many that the village was no longer sustainable, and survivors abandoned the settlement) which have historical untreated death rates of up to 85% and 90%. For a disease which does not provoke the same modern terror, despite continuing to exist, the "Black Death" or plague may be comparable, with death rates from 80% (bubonic) to 95% (pneumonic) to almost 100% (septicaemic). The Black Death famously wiped out perhaps as much of half of Europe. So yes, diseases have and do exist which have these sort of death rates, but the time rate is still short. The Black Death generally killed in 6-10 days, Ebola kills in 6-16 days, and anthrax usually appears in 7-10 days and then takes another 2-3 days to kill.

It is not wholly clear how the Scourge of Odin is transmitted. Astrid does not immediately attempt to quarantine or isolate herself, suggesting that she does not believe the others to be in immediate danger from contact, and Hiccup reassures Snotlout that the Scourge cannot be transmitted by breathing (so presumably via coughs or sneezes). Astrid is infected through blood contact, which may suggest an infection type similar to Ebola, and it is not known whether there are animal vectors.

Notably, it seems that the disease has either been existing in areas other than the archipelago, has become epizootic (surviving in animal populations), or has the ability to survive in the wild similar to that of anthrax (which spores can survive for at least decades).

This combination of extreme virulence, specific forms of transmission, possible ability to survive in the wild, and extremely quick kills make this is a dangerous disease, but also an extremely unusual one - and one which at least pushes the edges of what exists in nature even if it might not be impossible.

 

 

 

** A Conclusion? **

So where does that leave us? We have islands that do not correspond to current or historical locations, religion and science erratically understood and applied, and plants and animals which either do not exist in the real world or exist outside of the times and locations that we would expect.

My solution for this is that the  _How to Train Your Dragon_ series is set in a far future,  _post-apocalyptic_ world. Changes in sea level and possibly even major war/bombing events have reshaped coastlines, and while some pieces of knowledge remain, others have been lost altogether. Pre-apocalypse human actions included genetic engineering, leading to the diseases, plants and animals which exist in the world... including the dragons.

What can we tell about the history of this setting, though? Is there a world which might provide us the background for how dragons came to be?

Hold onto your hats, folks. Because part two of this meta intends to give an example of just what canon it might be.


	2. Jurassic Park: The Dawn of Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All dragon images in this chapter come from howtotrainyourdragon.com

Of course, what brings most people to  _How to Train Your Dragon_ isn't the Vikings - it's the dragons. And while dragons might at first seem like a fantasy element, the ones from  _How to Train Your Dragon_ have more than a faint sensation of science-fiction about them instead; fantastic work has gone into making the dragons feel "real". Whether that is the wingbeats of the dragons, where you can almost feel the work being done by the muscles, or the powerfully realistic lightning of the Skrill (discussed at length on the commentary on the DVD for  _Defenders of Berk Part 1_ ), the dragons feel grounded and, honestly, scientific. We can easily believe that musclepower is keeping them aloft and that the fire gas is being ignited to fire in their mouths; we don't need to call on magic or suspend our disbelief too hard.

The fact that the dragons are scientific might answer one question, but it raises another - where did the dragons come from? Again, I'm not offering a serious answer - but I do hope that I might be able to provide a moderately interesting and entertaining theory. The dragons of  _How to Train Your Dragon_ are the descendants of the resurrected dinosaurs of  _Jurassic Park_ , most specifically the genetically modified species which first appear in  _Jurassic World (2015)_ and are nodded towards in the first novel of the book series.

 

 

**What is a Dragon?**

This may at first sound like a facetious question - surely a dragon is a flying, fire-breathing reptile? Only that isn't necessarily the case in  _How to Train Your Dragon_. Again, I have done [previous work](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cuXOft604QCd3hdt4TG7cZC52aqGtWB6TtrL4i-7nCw/edit) compiling the movieverse dragon species (this spreadsheet is an ongoing work; looking at it is not essential, but if you're interested then feel free to check it out). While all of the dragons are certainly reptiles (the word is even specifically used for them by Tuffnut in  _Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man_ ), not all of them fly, and it is not confirmed that all of them breath fire.

 

Wingless dragons: left, Speed Stinger; right, Cavern Crasher.

  

 

Dragons which have not been seen to breathe fire: left to right, Flightmare, Skrill, Speed Stinger, Snow Wraith, Death Song, Seashocker, Bewilderbeast

            

In supplementary material, Thunderdrums are said to have blue fire as well as their sonic blasts, and Scauldrons are specifically said to be  _rumoured_ to breathe fire because Vikings have claimed to catch the distinctive smell of gas. Changewings supposedly have greatly reduced fire because of their acid production.

These lists point out a very peculiar anomaly: Speed Stingers neither have wings nor (so far as we know) breathe fire. So why are they classed as dragons? It cannot simply be that they are a reptile, which is all that remains in common with the dragons - wings vary from none to four, legs from none to ten, not all breathe fire, and they range in size from the less-than-a-foot Fireworm to the enormous Red Death and Bewilderbeast. Yet there is no indication of other reptiles, such as snakes, being classed as dragons within this universe (though they do not appear on-screen and so this is something of an absence-of-proof situation).

I can think of two solutions to this question: firstly, the category of 'dragons' is all but synonymous with 'reptiles', or secondly, there is some other aspect which defines what is a dragon and what is not. I posit that this aspect is that they are descended from genetically modified individuals, and that although this is no longer consciously known by the inhabitants of the  _How to Train Your Dragon_ world, it remains a folk memory that informs people's use of language.

 

 

** Tetrapods (and Beyond) **

A tetrapod is a creature that has four limbs, or is descended from one which did. It covers all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and possibly some long-extinct fish species. All limbed vertebrates fit into this pattern. However, in the  _How to Train Your Dragon_ universe, this is notably not the case.

  * **Six-limbed (hexapod) dragons:** Night Fury, Gronckle, Hideous Zippleback, Terrible Terror, Red Death, Snaptrapper, Smothering Smokebreath, Changewing, Flightmare, Snow Wraith, Death Song, Night Terror, Rumblehorn, Catastrophic Quaken, Razorwhip, Buffalord, Triple Stryke, Hotburple, Bewilderbeast, Hobblegrunt, Stormcutter, Grapple Grounder.
  * **Eight-limbed (octopod) dragons:** Thunderdrum, Singetail.
  * **Twelve-limbed (dodecapod) dragons:** Fireworm.



Now, the -pod words are honestly theoreticals;  _these do not exist in the real world_. Any examples in the scientific literature of animals with more than four limbs will be the result of conjoined twinning, which is recorded in reptiles (see below,  **Polycephaly** ) but not common. Polycephaly is also unpredictable, and could not be relied upon to produce dragon forms.

 _These dragons are impossible_.

It might seem absurd to say that dragons are impossible, but remember that I'm not talking about the flying, the breathing fire, the spitting acid, the venoms, or any other aspect. I am talking solely about the number of limbs. All vertebrates have a maximum of four limbs - to explain this as natural evolution would require rewriting evolutionary history back to the better part of 400 million years ago. It surely cannot be argued that this would provide a world that we would recognise!

My explanation, therefore, is that this is due to human intervention. Although genetic engineering and manipulation in the  _Jurassic Park_ world is recognisable to the science of the real world, it is subtly different, more advanced, and has something of an altered history. It does not seem inconceivable that within the  _Jurassic Park_ world, genetic science would have advanced to such an extent that hexapod (or greater) creatures could be created, made stable, and allowed to develop. 

 

 

 

** Fingers and Toes **

 

> _"But it's no lizard," she said._
> 
> _"No," Grant said. "This is not a lizard. No three-toed lizard has walked on this planet for two hundred million years."_

\- Jurassic Park, "Skeleton"

 

In the first chapter, I put on a disclaimer saying that I am not a Viking specialist. This chapter, I'm adding the rather broader disclaimer that I am neither a palaeontologist nor a geneticist!

 _Jurassic Park_ was written in 1991. Doing what research I can online, I cannot find an  **true lizards** which have two or three toes, but some research does indicate that there are a very small number of three-toed skinks in existence: the Western Three-Toed Skink ( _Chalcides striatus_ ) the Italian Three-Toed Skink ( _Chalcides chalcides_ ), the Small Three-Toed Skink ( _Chalcides minutus_ ) and the Moroccan Three-Toed Skink ( _Chalcides pseudostriatus_ ). The same genus includes the Two-Fingered Skink ( _Chalcidesmauritanicus_ ). The genus  _Hemiergis_ , also skinks, contains two-toed and three-toed varieties. Skinks are from the  **Scincidae** family, while true lizards are from the  **Lacertidae** family. Scincidae have less pronounced necks, smaller limbs, and variable numbers of toes.

It might seem very strange to talk about toes when the discussion at hand is supposed to be dragons. However, there is method to my madness. Most of the dragons in  _How to Train Your Dragon_ have four toes on each foot, which is perfectly common among reptiles. The Red Death and the Bewilderbeast have five toes on each foot, which is also common and shared by animals such as crocodiles. However, there are the following exceptions:

  * Two fingers, two toes: Snow Wraith, Razorwhip, Triple Stryke;
  * Two fingers, three toes: Speed Stinger, Death Song;
  * Three fingers, three toes: Thunderdrum, Flightmare, Skrill, Catastrophic Quaken, Hobblegrunt, possibly Scauldron.



Approximately 15% of the dragon species in the movies and TV series as of this time have three toes on all feet, and about another 10% have a three/two split or two toes on all feet. This is not something that appears in nature, and I would suggest that again it is a sign of human intervention. In this case, though, it is not just human meddling with genetics that might be to blame, but the very fact that any number of these dragons were constructed from dinosaur DNA, and are the genetic results of broad-scale human meddling.

 

 

 

 **Polycephaly**  

Polycephaly, as the result of conjoined twinning, is still uncommon in reptiles. However, snakes and turtles are among the most commonly-reported two-headed animals, and two-headed reptiles are sometimes able to live to adulthood. However, it is still newsworthy, for example with the two-headed snake We who [lived to the age of eight](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19334041/). These two-headed animals are only really known from captivity, because of their reduced lifespans, especially in cases where one head is parasitic or poorly-formed, because of difficulties in locomotion and even cases of the two heads attacking each other. However, they are known in the wild, including - beautifully and spectacularly - a 122 million year old fossil [hatchling Hyphalosaurus](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10827-two-headed-lizard-spied-in-a-fossil/) with two heads.

In  _How to Train Your Dragon_ , however, we have both the Hideous Zippleback and the Snaptrapper.

  

These species are clearly reliably polycephalic, with two and four heads respectively. They are quite able of living to adulthood, reproducing, hunting, and cooperating to control their bodies. Part of this might be due to the presumed interest to the dragons; while two-headed snakes might zigzag and tug at each other, without the ability to cooperate, it is clear from human individuals such as Abby and Brittany Hensel (conjoined twins from America) that it is quite possible for intelligent individuals to cooperate. The Hensels work together well enough to cycle or drive, for example. Dragons are not as smart as humans but clearly do have considerable intelligence, and for all that Barf and Belch disagree and quite literally butt heads at times, they are capable of cooperating well. Despite years of teasing, Snaptrappers have not yet made it onto screen beyond the  _Book of Dragons_ short!

So while it is possible to imagine that a sufficiently intelligent species could work with multiple heads, the fact is that - once again - it doesn't happen in nature.

Where, then, did it come from? I would argue at this point that it is once again human intervention. "Why" is harder to answer - maybe they thought there might be a tactical advantage, maybe they were testing to find out if they could, maybe someone just thought it would be cool. Humans tend to see if they can do things like that.

 

 

 

> _"You did. "Bigger." "Scarier." Um... "Cooler" (laughs) I believe is the word that you used in your memo."_

\- Henry Wu, Jurassic World (2015)

 

 

 

** Genetic Manipulation: Better Than Real **

 

 

> _"Well, not exactly," Wu said. He paced the living room, pointed to the monitors. "I don't think we should kid ourselves. We haven't **re-created** the past here. The past is gone. It can never be re-created. What we've done is  **reconstruct** the past - or at least a version of the past. And I'm saying we can make a better version."_
> 
> _"Better than real?"_
> 
> _"Why not?" Wu said. "After all, these animals are already modified. We've inserted genes to make them patentable, and to make them lysine dependent. And we've done everything we can to promote growth, and accelerate development into adulthood."_
> 
> _Hammond shrugged. "That was inevitable. We didn't want to wait. We have investors to consider."_
> 
> _"Of course. But I'm just saying, why stop there? Why not push ahead to make exactly the kind of dinosaur that we'd like to see? Or that is more acceptable to visitors, and one that is easier for us to handle? A slower, more docile version for our park?"_
> 
> _Hammond frowned. "But then the dinosaurs wouldn't be real."_
> 
> _"But they're not real now," Wu said. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. There isn't any reality here."_

\- Jurassic Park, "Version 4.4"

 

As early as the _Jurassic Park_ novel, the theme of genetic modification, and of making the dinosaurs in some way 'better', has been present. Interestingly, this increased domestication and docility is the opposite of what the Wu of the movies is searching for by the time of  _Jurassic World (2015)_.

 

 

> _"You are acting like we are engaged in some kind of mad science. But we are doing what we have done from the beginning. Nothing in Jurassic World in natural. We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And, if their genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different. But you didn't ask for reality. You asked for more teeth."_

\- Henry Wu,  _Jurassic Park (2015)_

 

This is very much to do with the different markets to whom Wu is thinking of working. In the novel, he wants to make the dinosaurs slower and more docile in order to make them easier to handle and so that they will be more like what the public would expect with the knowledge of dinosaurs at the time. In the movie, he is working to satisfy a public who already used to big dinosaurs - especially the  _T. Rex_ , who has surely been the centrepiece of the park since its opening. It can be compared to the race to make more impressive rollercoasters, which are in themselves becoming increasingly dangerous.

At the end of  _Jurassic World (2015)_ , Wu is leaving with InGen, which has been shown to have become increasingly militarised with time. Hoskins had been pushing to use the raptors for military reasons - what is there to say that, after  _Jurassic World_ , Wu does not work for the same end? It is heavily implied that the next stage of dinosaurs will be combat-oriented, whether they are hybrids or not.

Following this arc, of dinosaurs becoming increasingly machines of war, it does not seem that impossible that before too long they will head towards being dragons. Genetic manipulation to make them able to fly, to give them venom that can be used against the enemy, even eventually to be able to produce flammable gases and ignite them as they are expelled. 

There is another intriguing note in the book - Wu says that they have worked " _to promote growth, and accelerate development into adulthood"_. In _Defenders of Berk_ , the Screaming Death can be seen growing at an astonishing rate; in  _How to Train Your Dragon 2_ , Drago's Bewilderbeast is supposed to be one which he obtained as a hatchling, and therefore at most a few decades old. This is an absolutely extraordinary rate of growth; the Whispering Death is noted as being about 2,400 lbs, and the Screaming Death gets considerably larger within the year. It might put on over two tonnes in the first six months of its life. This rate of growth is achieved by the blue whale, but the Screaming Death has considerably harder skin, more armoured scales, and would struggle to grow at that rate.

Unless, of course, there has been some human intervention to facilitate growth speed. It's not clear how this is done - it is not mentioned in the text - but I'm sure that there are genetic methods out there which have been identified, for example starting growth earlier or making nutrition uptake more efficient.

 

 

 

** From Dinosaurs to Dragons **

What is a dragon, in the  _How to Train Your Dragon_ universe? A reptile, with some unknown quality that causes Vikings to group it together. It isn't judged on considerable size, or fire, or flying - some dragons do not even have two of those traits. But there is something about these creatures, so often far displaced from the legendary creatures of European mythology by whom they were inspired, that puts them together, and makes them a group.

What is a dinosaur, in  _Jurassic Park_? A chimera, based on a real animal but patched, fixed up or even deliberately changed according to what humans want. In the words of Wu himself, in either continuity, they are not real. They are artificial, in concept as well as in conception.

In  _Jurassic Park_ we were introduced to Isla Nublar and the 'resurrected' dinosaurs; in _The Lost World_ and  _Jurassic Park III_ , we saw Isla Sorna, the reality behind the facade of the sterile all-female dinosaur populations.  _Jurassic World_ took us a generation on, showed the genetic reconstruction becoming genetic manipulation on the level of creating new species to fit 'customer' demand. "More teeth". Dinosaurs are becoming a military weapon, designed as a form of bioengineering.

Take the genetic work further. Discover how to control conjoined twinning, allowing for polycephalic or hexapod animals. Refine venoms. Discover how to make venoms or toxins that can be aerosolised in breathe - and then add a form of ignition, perhaps modified from the bones that became the small bones of the ear in mammals, but are part of the jaw in reptiles. Use the structures of pterosaurs to inform how to make larger and more powerful winged dinosaurs. 

You aren't all that far from dragons.

Only, somehow, humans take it too far. (Don't we always, in narrative like this?) Bioweapons get loose (The Scourge of Odin sweeps through populations), the dinosaurs-become-dragons get out of control and form their own wild populations. War decimates people. Chaos takes over.

> _"We are witnessing the end of the scientific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Fifty years ago, everyone was gaga over the atomic bomb. That was power. No one could imagine anything more. Yet, a bare decade after the bomb, we began to brave genetic power. And genetic power is far more potent than atomic power. And it will be in everyone's hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators. And that will force everyone to ask the same question - What should I do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot answer."_
> 
> _"So what will happen?" Ellie said._
> 
> _Malcolm shrugged. "A change."_
> 
> _"What kind of change?"_
> 
> _"All major changes are like death," he said. "You can't see to the other side until you are there."_

\- Jurassic World, "Control"


End file.
